Farmers hear warning about global warming

September 28, 2012

California’s agricultural industry will be faced with making major amendments to farming methods and crop plantings as Earth’s climate continues its warming evolution. [San Francisco Chronicle]

“Climate change is stacking the deck,” biologist Stuart Weiss said in an article prepared by the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting and KQED public radio.

It’s not going to happen overnight, according to scientists. But Weiss, chief scientist of the Creekside Center for Earth Observation in Menlo Park, is predicting a gradual temperature rise of nearly two degrees over the next 30 years affecting agriculture from the Napa Valley through the Central Valley to the Imperial Valley.

That doesn’t sound like much, but in critical growing stages it is huge.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported in 2010 that climate change poses a major risk to all of the nation’s agriculture, but California appears particularly vulnerable.

This in turn is causing the state’s largest industry to reassess its operation.